Vuscovi grammar
Grammatical genders Vuscovi uses a system of grammatical genders, dependant almost completely on a physical or artful quality of the word in question. However, there does exist exceptions, most evidently in many proper nouns and given names. There are two tiers of genders: Word Genders and Gendered Articles. Word Genders The two gendered writing formats are as so: flat (feminine) and stressed (masculine) words, with the third, “neuter”, being a mix of the two. The gendered writing format is used predominantly as an accompaniment to gendered articles (explained in the subsequent section). These manifest through cultural gender stereotypes, with the bias toward masculine and feminine dependant on the gendered connotations of a word. For instance, words (nouns, verbs, adjectives and so forth) used to describe a man or a male’s sexual organs would be written entirely with stressed letters. Words describing a woman or female sexual organs would be written entirely in feminine letters. Other words are gendered depending on their social connotations, with some words having no “fixed” gender, especially for words that change depending on their context. Some examples: the word for “War” (Naj`xh Na-jay-khh) is a neuter word with only one masculine letter, hence being predominantly feminine, whereas the word for “Bloodshed” (K`ѧ`ѵ Kay-kuh-vee-cue-vv) is dominantly masculine. There is no fixed, foolproof system to determine the gender of every word. Using the correct gender in Vuscovi requires extensive study of Vuscovi lexicon and Vuscovi cultural connotations. Stressed letters are denoted by the adding of a grave accent after the letter (i.e. A`, B`, etc), and are pronounced differently (referred to as “revealing the letter’s name”). Grave accents also signify a glottal stop (like the pause in “uh-oh”), with the length of the glottal stop dependent on where it is used (see Nouns, Adjectives & Adverbs). Gendered Articles Gendered articles also exist, in the forms of masculine, neuter and feminine. As articles, these function similarly to the English “the”, “an” and “a”, however have a more complicated and versatile function, described in the Cases section (below). A small example: The Vuscovi masculine, neuter and feminine words for the definite article “The” are Ѡi, Ѡio, and Yѡi respectively. Since genders are used in conjunction with their gendered word, Ѡio (and its counterparts) are by far the most common, due to most words classifying as neuter. Cases Vuscovi has many grammatical cases (or two case categories), and these affect articles, nouns, and plurals. Cases for Vuscovi are fairly tidy and mechanical, and unlike Vuscovi genders, always follows their own rules. Cases are dropped whenever they are not needed, i.e. for expressions such as “go”, “hello”, “goodbye”, “yes”, etc, or listing items. Noun Cases There are seven noun cases in Vuscovi. Cases take the form of small extensions that are added to the last word in its parent word string, as shown below. Other functions are carried out by adjectives and conjugated articles (i.e. space, location, time, etc). Pronoun Cases Pronouns use the same cases as all normal nouns, however when necessary can have additional prepositional and/or plural functions when combined with articles. The combined article is used as a declension (this is explained further in the subsequent section). If the pronoun is singular, and the noun it is attached to does not require a preposition, then a declension is not necessary (similar to how, in English, “my” or “our” etc. can replace an “a” or “the”). Personal Pronouns, Singular Pronouns are largely mechanical, much like nouns, however the inflection of some pronouns behaves in unusual manners, and thus require memorisation for learners. Category:Languages